


its a small town son (and we all support the team)

by bewareoftrips



Series: life's a kick in this town [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Multi, Riverparents, parentdale, post party blues, small town antics, the morning after
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25174294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewareoftrips/pseuds/bewareoftrips
Summary: post party blues and the fine line between enemies and best friends
Relationships: Alice Cooper & Gladys Jones, Alice Cooper/Hal Cooper, Fred Andrews & FP Jones II, Fred Andrews & Hal Cooper, Fred Andrews & Hiram Lodge, Fred Andrews/FP Jones II, Fred Andrews/Hermione Lodge, Hermione Lodge/Hiram Lodge, Mary Andrews & Hermione Lodge, Penelope Blossom & Hal Cooper
Series: life's a kick in this town [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/965013
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jugheadjones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/gifts).



> who you lookin for  
> what was his name  
> you can probably find him  
> at the football game  
> it's a small town  
> you know what I mean  
> it's a small town, son  
> and we all support the team  
> the preacher drove by in his cadillac  
> i waved at him but he didn't wave back  
> it's a small town  
> everybody knows your face  
> it's a small town, son  
> and we all must know our place  
> -talkin at the texaco

“Should we wake them up?” 

The voice is familiar but nothing else is. Something floods his head from his childhood. Sleepovers and adventure scouts and baloney sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The connection is on the tip of his tongue but so is the fast approaching need to vomit. He swallows down both and resists holding a hand to his throbbing temple. He pretends to sleep. 

Something covers the light over him and he feels a kick against whatever he’s lying on. A flimsy lawn chair by the wobble. The taste of vomit burns his throat.

“Get the hose, Hal,” a second voice says sharply.

Hal. Duh. 

“No,” Hal says in that dubious, whiny tone that means he doesn’t want to go along with a plan but probably will anyway. It was the same voice Fred himself had weaseled out of Hal on a near daily basis from grades two to eight. “Can’t we just -”

“Fine, I’ll get it myself.” 

There’s the light sound of slippered feet walking away. Hiram’s feet, he now realizes. No one else had that much contempt to spare. Fred tries to pull up memories from the night before. Something about a party no one else really wanted to go to. Gladys driving them in her mom’s car. Trying to get the band to play. Someone in a shitty mood. Hell, maybe they’d all been in a shitty mood. Alice and her jacket and whatever she had stuffed in those pockets that she told him time and time again he wouldn’t like. The expression ‘Acid Queen Alice’ pops into his head in Hiram’s sly voice and he doesn’t remember the context but he bites down a smile in spite of himself.

“Hey, Fred?” Another kick on his lawn chair, lighter this time. Hal. “Fred? Wake up.” A long pause and another kick that he hardly feels. “FP?”

He has to press his eyelids shut tight. FP was here too? Well hadn’t they all gone to the party together after all? Had they gotten into a fight? Or maybe he’d gotten into a fight with Hiram. No, that made no sense. He was always fighting with Hiram, nothing new there. But a fight with FP would surely -

He loses all track of thought as a spray of water hits him straight in the face. 

He tries to stand up but his foot misses the floor and ends up going square through the weaving of the chair, sending him toppling over. He’s vaguely aware of other noises around him. FP’s grunts and something high pitch enough to make him think Hal has probably gotten caught in the crossfire. In another time and place he’d feel bad over that, but his childhood friend had gotten a little too buddy-buddy with Hiram Lodge over the school year and he couldn’t quite scrounge up the sympathy. 

When the water finally stops, Fred shakes his hair out madly and takes in the scene. The lawn chair around his ankle was all but destroyed. Who knew the Lodges would own anything so cheap? FP’s flat on his ass next to another lawn chair and Hal’s wringing out the bottom of his t-shirt. Hiram stands with the hose held loosely in one hand, his silk robe hanging open to reveal a pair of boxers and a chest that - in Fred’s opinion at the very least - was hardly built up enough for someone to be nicknamed ‘The Ram.’

“Why?” Hal scowls and Fred wants to join him until he gets a good look at Hal’s t-shirt. One of those famous THE RAM ones that Hermione had been sporting last week with her cheerleading skirt. 

Fred wants to scream. To curse. To maybe yank the hose from Hiram’s hand and spray all three of the boys in the yard with him.

Instead he keels over and pukes. 

No one comes to his aid.

When he recovers and stands back up, the hose is pointed right at him. Only this time Hiram is offering it.

“Clean that up or you’ll have Hal barfing all over my patio too.” 

Hiram walks off back towards the house, his robe wafting after him in the spring breeze. Sure enough, Hal’s gaze is as far from Fred as it could be, looking curiously at FP who shakes water from his hair. Fred remembers all too well Hal’s revulsion towards vomit. ‘Sympathy puke’ Oscar used to tease him over. 

It seems unfair that Hiram Lodge of all people knows this detail about Hal. Hal who Fred has known since diapers and Hiram has only known since last summer. 

He sprays away his puke that looks much too orange for comfort. The water runs towards the lawn and Fred vaguely remembers his dad mentioning the stomach acid in puke being bad for growth. He snickers to himself.

“Why’d you guys crash out here?” Hal asks, finally daring to look at Fred. “The house is huge, there’s plenty of room inside.”

“You make it a habit of sleeping here or something?” Fred doesn’t know why there’s an edge in his voice or why he’s mad at Hal, but he is. It takes all his restraint to not hiss Judas at the end of his question. Or Brutus. Benedict Arnold. Wait, had Benedict Arnold been the traitor? Maybe it was Benjamin Franklin. Hal would know but he wasn’t about to ask. “I didn’t realize you two were so chummy now.”

Hal looks disheartened at Fred’s sour mood. His voice sad. “What’s it to you if I’m friends with Hiram?”

“He hates me!” Fred shoots a look at FP, but he’s pulling his shirt over his head to wring it out. Purposely ignoring Fred, Hal, his surroundings. FP is mad at Fred or Fred is mad at him and it doesn’t matter either way because it incites such a rage in Fred - seeing these two who are supposed to be his friends be so cruel to him for no apparent reason - that he has nothing in his head for anything but pain. “We’re supposed to be friends, Hal! And you’ve spent this whole year rubbing elbows with someone who thinks I’m dirt! Why? Just to spite me? Rub it in my face? What kind of -”

“I’m not allowed to have other friends?” Hal snaps in such a sharp tone, Fred recoils. “Like what am I supposed to do, Fred? We hardly even hang out anymore. And you’ve ditched me for,” Hal juts a thumb over his shoulder at FP, “a million times and I don’t whine about it.”

“Yeah, well,” Fred runs his fingers through his hair, already tangling from the water, “FP doesn’t hate you at least.”

FP looks up at his name. His jaw is tight, as if he’s torn between disputing what Fred said or joining in their fight. Instead he fishes for cigarette from his jacket on the ground.

“This isn’t about me, Freddie.”

It’s his varsity jacket, not his serpent one. He never wears his serpent jacket to school or anything involving their peers. It wasn’t like people didn’t know where FP Jones was from or what he did, but Fred knew it was a pride thing. Only a few sophomores ever made the varsity teams. Ever earned those letterman jackets. He remembered Gladys and Alice giving him shit in the car the night before. Gladys had teased good naturedly (she herself had been in an old bomber jacket of her mom’s that Fred coveted to no end) while Alice had scowled and rolled her eyes. 

FP still looks like he wants to say something, but his mouth stays shut. His opinions kept to himself. He wasn’t like Fred who was pained by silence. FP could run his mouth at the worst of times, but he still had that ability to choose his battles every so often. 

Hal turns back on Fred, seemingly relieved FP looks away. “All I’m saying is you were already at the party. No one was going to care if you stayed over. You guys didn’t need to sleep in lawn chairs.”

Fred’s head is pounding, trying to make sense of Hal’s words. “I don’t need Hiram Lodge doing me any favors.”

“What are you -”

“He’s hungover, Coop.” FP pulls his wet shirt back over his head. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

Fred opens his mouth to protest, but he feels that watery feeling in his mouth again. He bends over and pukes up whatever’s left in his stomach.

“Serves you right.” When Fred gets back up FP is shaking his head and Hal is a lovely shade of green. 

“What did I do to you?” His voice is whiny and high and he has an undying need to be in his own bed with his mom tucking him in. “You didn’t have to come to this party.”

FP gives him a hard look. “Do you remember anything from last night?” 

Fred remembers trying to do a keg stand. He remembers Hermione wearing a miniskirt and walking with her shoes in her hands. He remembers kissing someone in the pantry and eating cheese balls by the handful. They’d been the good ones that came in the five gallon tub from Costlow. The ones his mom only bought for birthday parties. Maybe that’s why his puke was that sick orange color.

“I remember everything.”

“Then tell me something.” FP walks close to him, their chests nearly pressed together. He can still smell weed on FP and the faint smell of something else. Maybe perfume or maybe the flowers from the front garden. “Tell me anything that happened.”

That sinking feeling fills his stomach but he shoves it away. “You were in a shitty mood and you ditched me.”

FP sucks his teeth. “I’m right here, ain't I?”

Fred digs himself a hole. “You left me at some point last night. I remember because - because I remember looking around and you weren’t there and I was really drunk and it was just me and Hiram and like -”

“I didn’t ditch you.” It infuriates him that FP is able to keep so cool. It makes Fred think he doesn’t care at all. That if Fred had been the one ditching him, he wouldn’t give a hoot. But something in his eyes tell Fred he’s wrong. FP’s eyes are that kind of sad brown that always makes Fred’s mom give him a good long squeeze every time he’s about to go home. “If I wanted to ditch you I wouldn’t have slept on a fucking lawn chair to make sure you didn’t hurl yourself into traffic.” 

“I’d never -”

“Wanna bet?” FP challenges. Fred pouts and FP doesn’t push it. They both know that while maybe Fred wouldn’t literally run into traffic after a few beers, he’d done some questionable things in the past. FP looks more tired than mad, although Fred can’t say if it’s due to lack of sleep or exasperation at this relationship of theirs. Whatever it’s called. “Get your shit together, Freddie.”

FP pushes past him without another look, following the path Hiram took through the sliding glass doors of the kitchen. Hal chews on his bottom lip.

“You okay?” he asks with a hint of sympathy in his voice now that the two were alone. Fred shrugs. “Come on. There’s coffee inside.”

Hal takes two steps before Fred grabs his arm. “Did I do anything stupid last night?”

“Probably.”

“Hal, come on. I think I blacked out.”

Hal fumbles to stick his hands in his pockets before he remembers his pajama pants don’t have any. “I don’t know, Fred. I was doing my own thing last night.”

Fred follows him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Hal’s hand pauses on the sliding door and he speaks low, as if he doesn’t want the two inside to hear. 

“It means the world doesn’t revolve around you, Fred.”

Fred’s slapped in the face by both Hal’s words and the brisk air conditioning flowing out of the kitchen. FP is blowing on a cup of black coffee and already looks ten times better by the single sip. Always the sucker for caffeine. Hiram eyes FP suspiciously, as if he thinks FP is seconds away from stealing his mother’s good silver and smashing the mug on the floor for good measure. 

Hal fixes both of them cups of coffee with too much cream and sugar, ignoring Hiram’s taunts about them diluting the taste. Hal’s simple “uh huh” reminds Fred again of the kid he grew up with. He wonders what Hal could have been up to the night before that he wouldn’t just give up the information. With some guilt he realizes the truth to Hal’s words. ‘The world doesn’t revolve around you, Fred.’ Maybe Hal wasn’t the sidekick in his own story. 

FP watches him through a side eye. Maybe FP wasn’t a sidekick either.

It would only take a few minutes of well phrased questions to get Hal to spill his guts, but - annoyed with him or not - he can’t do that to him in front of FP and Hiram. Can’t pull details out of him like a magician pulling scarves out of his sleeve. To do it in front of a crowd would be the ultimate betrayal. More of a betrayal than Hal ditching him for Hiram. Even if Fred ditched Hal long ago for FP’s company.

FP has no such loyalty towards Hal. In the kitchen, with their eyes adjusting from the bright dawn outside, he tears his eyes from Fred and narrows them at Hal. His lips form a wry grin and his eyes fade away from the sad ones Fred saw outside.

“Who gave you that?” FP asks as he takes several steps into Hal's personal space.

Fred and Hiram look up at the same time, almost as if they both expect to see a hickey or something of the like on Hal. Instead they catch FP pressing his thumb hard against a bruise just beginning to form on Hal’s cheek. 

He doesn’t just recoil - he yelps and jumps back two feet, shrugging when he finally collects himself. 

“Penelope,” he says plainly and leaves it at that. FP furrows his brow, unhappy with the answer. Fred gets a pang of jealousy of FP acting like himself again after the snark outside. Maybe it was just the coffee.

“Penelope who? Blossom?”

“Is there another one?” Hal doesn’t quite snap but there’s an edge to his tone.

Hiram snorts into his coffee. “I know you did not spend the night with Penelope. I thought -”

“I wasn’t with anyone!” But his face is a lovely shade of red that makes Fred think of the aforementioned girl’s hair. “I slept in the guest room. No big deal.”

“God.” FP leans in towards Hal’s face. “You must have really pissed her off if she socked you square in the face.” 

A small part of Fred is proud Hal doesn’t wince at FP using the lord’s name in vain. All that Catholic guilt must finally be draining out of him.

“She didn’t punch me.” He looks sheepish, as if he deserved whatever made Penelope Blossom invoke violence on him. “She - she threw her shoe and it hit me.”

“Her shoe?”

“It was a high heel.” He holds his finger an inch or so apart. “Well, like a kitten heel.”

Fred let out a low whistle. “With an arm like that she ought to try out for the baseball team.” He examines Hal’s face closer but doesn’t touch. “She just barely missed your eye.”

“Yeah well she wasn’t aiming for my face.”

“Probably just going for the bigger target.” FP casually helps himself to a banana off the counter. “Just didn’t see much south to aim -”

“I mean,” Hal cuts him off, his annoyance growing, “she was aiming for someone else. I just got in the way.” He looks at his wet clothes. “That happens a lot.”

The creak of a floorboard makes all four boys jump. Sierra Samuels and Tom Keller are in the doorway passing the kitchen, clearly trying to go by unnoticed. Tom has one arm around Sierra’s shoulder while his other holds two pairs of shoes tightly to his chest. Pointless since both were clearly sneakers. Tom’s face immediately reddens with four sets of eyes on him, but Sierra forces a smile and tugs at Tom’s shirt. 

“Lovely party, Hiram.” She gives a half wave but doesn’t stop walking. “Glad I got dragged out last night.”

Tom’s eyes stay on the ground. “Yeah, it was cool. We need to, uh -” But they’re gone before Tom gets another word out. 

FP nods with some admiration and Hiram rolls his eyes over his coffee cup. 

“Everyone thinks my house is a free-for-all.” He almost grabs a banana off the counter but thinks better of it. “I have couples sleeping in my den, Hal in my guest room, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum sleeping in my yard.”

“Your house is big enough,” Hal mutters. “Price of throwing a party.”

“Whatever.” Hiram slams a cupboard closed. “I’m stressing. I need humble small town food. Let’s go to Pops, Hal.”

Hal juts his head towards Fred and FP. Hiram raises his brows.

“What? I’m not inviting them.”

“They’re your guests, Hiram. My mom always says -”

“Oh bully for you mom, Hal.” Hiram drains his cup. “I’m not sharing a booth with them.”

He says this but Fred knows there have been multiple occasions where he and Hiram ended up at the same lunch table, the same booth, the same row at the Bijou. The problem with small towns is you have no choice but to hang out with your arch enemy, your rival. But to intentionally break bread together? Not by pure chance or mishap? Unheard of. 

“You can at least give them a ride home.” Hal’s voice has just a hint of nag in it. It makes him sound like his mother.

Hiram scowls something fierce but says, “At least go stand in the sun for a few minutes. I don’t want the upholstery getting wet.”

Fred and FP stand in the rounded driveway as Hiram and Hal change. Part of Fred wonders if Hal keeps a change of clothes here like they used to do when they were kids, but he brushes that away. Even if Hiram never came into the picture, he and Hal probably would have grown apart. Hell, hadn’t they already been long before Hiram came to Riverdale? He wonders if Hal feels this same way about FP. Did he get jealous every time he saw them together? Had he always? 

He remembers freshman year and trying to explain his complicated relationship with FP to Hal. How it would be like Hal being jealous of - and then he thought about his own words and realized he didn’t exactly know what made FP different. What was special about the two of them? Why their bond was so different and all consuming and couldn’t Hal just get it? Did he have to spell it out?

And in the end he told Hal he was being a kid and to grow up, jealousy was for middle school. But then Hal had given the two of them space. And then jumped and became Hiram’s best friend out of nowhere. And maybe that would have made everything less confusing if Hermione hadn’t waltzed up and finally paid him the time of day. And paid Hiram the time of day as well. 

Some days he thinks he should tell Hermione to go fly a kite, at least he has FP. But another part of him knows he and FP can never have what he and Hermione have. Not now at least. And not in Riverdale. Not in a small town, son.

FP is looking at him with those sad eyes again and Fred shakes his brain clear. Scatterbrained, his mom calls him. He wishes sometimes he had a brain like Mary Maiden. Mary’s head was probably filed using the dewey decimal system. Fred’s looked like the underside of someone’s bed with missing socks and empty chocolate bar wrappers scattered about. 

“You’re thinking too hard,” FP says. “You’ll fry your brain that way.”

It was an old joke between them - Fred Andrews had never thought too hard in his entire life - but it wasn’t accompanied by the normal jostling. The tossling of hair. The arm around the shoulders. The hot breathed laugh into his neck. 

Fred thinks he knows what happened last night but it’s not the time or place to bring it up. Maybe it never is and he hates that.

Clothes still wet, they pile into Hiram's car. His dad’s Cadillac convertible to be exact. Fred wants to yell shotgun, but he lets Hal have it. It doesn’t want to ride next to Hiram anyway. 

They’re hardly out of the driveway when FP asks, smooth as a cucumber, “You close the deal with Alice last night, Coop?”

The back of Hal’s neck goes red and no slumping in his seat can hide him entirely. 

“Nothing happened.” Hal’s voice is hardly a choke. “Really.”

“Alice?” Fred leans forward in his seat. “Like Alice Smith Alice?” He’s known them both since childhood but can’t think of a single time the two of them have exchanged more than a quick word. More than a glance. 

“Acid Queen Alice?” Hiram chuckles and stops as FP, accidentally or not, kicks the back of his seat. “I mean she’s certainly a little advanced for you.”

“I said nothing happened.” Hal looks straight down at his lap. “I actually saw her storm off after some fight or something. Early too. I swear.”

“Well I saw you two walking up stairs together.” FP puts on a disinterested voice but Fred notes his leg bouncing in excitement. FP was never one for gossip but he was certainly one for giving Alice shit. “And Tom said he saw you two making out in the yard.” He let out a low whistle. “You can share with the group you know.”

Hal’s too easy of a target for someone like FP. Fred can just make out his face in the side mirror. Hal rolls his eyes, his face still red. “We kissed a little, that was it. We went upstairs because someone spilled something on her and she wanted to change.”

Fred asks, “In front of you?” as Hiram asks, “Change into what?” FP laughs.

“So just some second base? Because Tom said in the yard it looked like you guys were getting pretty handsy -”

“Were you not going to tell me this?” Hiram actually sounds a little hurt. 

“Nothing happened! There were no bases! There was nothing -”

“Well there was obviously at least first base if you were kissing.” Fred leans over to the front seat and holds up a finger. “Like second base if you were getting handsy. Heavy second if pants were taken off upstairs -”

“No,” FP joins him leaning over the seat. “That would be third base.”

“Wrong,” Fred says matter of factly. “Third is anything where your mouth gets involved.”

“Second base is above the belt, third base is below. Simple as that.”

Fred waves a finger. “No, that’s not -”

“If you’re not using your mouth before third base,” Hiram chimes in while staring at the road, “you’re definitely doing something wrong.”

Hal’s turned around in his seat, his eyebrows furrowed. “Kissing involves using your mouth, Fred.”

“I mean using your mouth like,” he makes a few crude gestures that sends FP into a fit of laughter. It feels good to make FP laugh again. “Oral, Hal.” 

And with that, Hal turns back around in his seat and slinks down. “Hiram, drop me off first.”

“No way.” Hiram looks away from the road for a second to glare at him. “We’re supposed to get breakfast. You can tell me all about your night of debauchery over pancakes.”

Fred snorts. For a few minutes, he thinks it could be like this. Things could be laid back and fun. There didn’t need to be sworn enemies and blood feuds at age sixteen. But another part of him knows this is short lived. That by the time spring break ended he and Hiram would be plotting new ways to ruin each other’s lives over a girl who got off on driving them both up the wall. 

“The real issue we’re trying to figure out,” FP’s voice drags him back, “is whether a handjob is second or third base, am I right?”

“Yes,” Hiram says as Hal exclaims, “No!”

“I’m the baseball expert here!” Fred whines. 

“Hey, uh.” Hal fumbles for the handle of the door. “Hiram, you can drop me off here.I just -”

“Hal!” Hiram slams on the brakes just down the road from Sunnyside Trailer Park as Hal opens his door. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Fred bites his cheek as he takes in the house they’re in front of. Two girls lounge on the stoop, chipped coffee cups at their feet. Alice Smith and Gladys Cohen both narrow their eyes through the sun and look curious as Hal gets out. 

“Hey Gladys!” Hiram gives her a half wave. She looks at him like he’s a stranger even though Fred knows they share a lab table in chem. 

Hal approaches the girls slowly as FP hops over the edge of the car without so much as a thank you or goodbye. 

“Did you want to come over?” Fred calls out but FP is making a beeline for the trailer park entrance, not even waving at the girls as he passes. Fred thinks about following him but knows the chances that Senior is home are more likely than not.

“Hal!” Hiram tries but Hal waves without even looking their way. “Front seat, Andrews.” Hiram puts the car back into drive. “Now.”

Fred climbs to the front, not even bothering to keep his wet sneakers off the leather. They don’t speak until they’re in the parking lot of Pops.

“You could have anyone in school.” Hiram’s eyes fixate on a window of the diner. “So why Hermione?”

FP has asked him the same questions dozens of times. He answers the same way. 

“I don’t know.” He follows Hiram’s gaze. Hermione and Mary are sitting in a booth in the far corner, probably discussing last night and whatever mess occurred. Fred wishes he remembered what.

“We can be friends, Fred Andrews.”

Fred shifts. “We can?”

“No. But maybe things are better if we pretend.” Hiram looks his way. “Hal says when we pull stunts like last night we just make Hermione think we’re a joke.”

Fred can’t remember what stunt from last night Hiram means, but he nods. “Are you calling a truce?”

Hiram considers. “That’s a little too diplomatic. Lets just say we’re rooting for the same team.” 

He doesn’t know if that’s true, but Hiram doesn’t play on any team and Fred is sick of debating sports analogies. “No other choice in a small town.”

Hiram gets out of the car and takes five steps before looking at him. “Breakfast isn’t going to walk itself out here, Andrews. Come on.”


	2. Chapter 2

Alice is only half asleep when someone knocks on her window. The repetitive _tap tap tap tap tap_ lets her know who it is and that they’re not going to let up any time soon. She crawls to the end of her bed and moves the curtain aside.

“It’s early,” she whines but Gladys holds up a cup of coffee and she reluctantly rolls out of bed. She scans her small room and sees some Cinderella-esque reminder of last night on her floor. Not a glass slipper but rather a pair of red kitten heels. Dorothy Gale all grown up. Or rather Penelope Blossom all dressed up for the big party. Alice kicks them under her bed in a huff.

She doesn’t bother with shoes or a bra, just walks out to the tiny porch of her house where Gladys is already making herself comfortable.

“You look like hell.” Gladys hands her a mug that says VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS even though Alice is quite sure neither Gladys nor her mother has ever been anywhere south of Centerville. “Tough night?”

“Eat shit.” But she takes the coffee and a seat next to Gladys anyway. Gladys is decked out in an oversized Ramones t-shirt and a pair of Converses that have seen better days. Alice’s house - if the three rooms and shoddy plumbing could so generously be called as such - is right across the back entrance to Sunnyside Trailer Park, giving them a splendid view of the chain link fence that separates them. Southside from Sunnyside. Same shit.

Although there are some days Alice wishes she lived on that side of the fence. At least they had a maintenance guy to call when the roof leaked. 

She takes a long sip off her coffee and uses her free hand to reach into the flower pot two feet away. Under some old mail - her dad had yet to replace the mailbox he’d hit with the truck three months ago - she finds a stale pack of cigarettes and a Bic. Gladys helps herself as Alice flicks the lighter.

“If you’re expecting a sorry for last night,” Gladys leans in and lights her cigarette off Alice’s, “you’ve got another thing coming.”

Alice tosses the lighter back in the pot, racking her brain. “Am I supposed to be mad at you?”

Gladys purses her lips in a way that reminds Alice all too much of herself. “Well I left you at that party. Guess I thought you’d notice. Too much to hope for when you ditch me to screw whatever bland Northsider caught your fancy.”

“Oh.” And Alice feels her whole face set on fire. “Sorry. You were off doing -”

“I was doing no one.” Gladys flicks some ash off the porch and taps her sneakers together. “Can you say the same?” There’s a mixture of annoyance and genuine curiosity in her voice. “Bonzo goes to third base?”

“No bases were reached.” She can’t recall when she lost track of Gladys or what the girl may have seen and she’s in no mood to get into it just yet. “I got a ride home.”

“Let me guess.” Gladys sits up straight and puts on a tone of pseudo snootiness. “From Hal Cooper?”

Alice holds in her gloat. She taps her cigarette against the porch and waits for Gladys to take another sip of coffee. “Nope. From Penelope Blossom.”

Gladys chokes. “Don’t fuck with me,” comes out between coughs. Alice only looks over the rim of her coffee cup. “Al, I know you didn’t hook up with that little prude. She’d never -”

“Get your goddamn mind out of the gutter. No one said anything about hooking up with anyone.” She rolls her eyes so she doesn’t need to look at her but a little part of her feels a thrill remembering she’d made out with one person last night and been kissed by another. “I said she gave me a ride home. Well no actually.” She flicks some ash off her cigarette. “She was plastered so I drove her.” 

Gladys furrows her brow. “What? Did you give her a ride on your broomstick?”

“Gross. What -” 

“You don’t have a car, Al.”

Her face grows red at missing the joke and she knows she’s all off her game. She could normally banter with Gladys for hours and never miss a beat. “In - in her car. I drove her car.”

“The little red hotrod?”

“I think it’s a Ford.” And Alice is embarrassed. Embarrassed because it was all so stupid and the last thing she wants to do it discuss any of the mess that was last night. Had to save some face. “She was a drunk, a mess. Really upset. We went to Pops. I forced some fries down her throat -”

“Sexy.” Gladys pulls her legs up to her chest and leans in. “Does she -”

“Not literally. She eats them with a fork.”

Gladys recoils. “She eats fries with a fork?”

“Fries with a fork.” She sips the coffee growing cold in her hand. “Probably cuts her pizza with a knife and fork too. Demands her burgers be sliced into quarters -”

“I think you’re trying to change the subject.” Gladys crushed out her cigarette and tucks another behind her ear for later. “How’d you end up doing anything with Penelope Blossom? I thought you couldn’t stand her.”

“She can’t stand me.” And that wasn't entirely true. Alice wiggles her toes, still aching from trading shoes with Penelope the night before. “I’ve never done a thing to her.” A lie but Gladys already knows that.

“So you took her home?”

“No. No, I actually left her at Pops once she sobered up a bit. I could walk home from there and she said she’d be fine.” Gladys scowls at her. “What?”

“Al, the least you could have done was get her to her front door.”

“Well sorry,” she snaps, defensive all of a sudden. “I could have just left her at that party all together where God knows what could have happened to her.” This too is a lie because Hal Cooper probably would have done the same thing she did in her situation. Better too because Hal was exactly the kind of person who would have driven her home and brought her to the front door and told her parents she ate some bad shrimp at the Lodge’s party and needed a lie down and no sir, Mr. Blossom, your daughter certainly was not drinking. “Hey, do you know shrimp cocktail is served cold?”

Gladys screws up her face at the change of subject. “What the fuck is a shrimp cocktail?”

“Cold shrimp. I tried it last night.” She sticks out her tongue. “It was disgusting.”

Gladys ponders this. “Isn’t cold fish sushi?”

“No, that’s like raw fish.” 

“I don’t eat shellfish.” Gladys pulls a face. “My mom says never eat anything that carries its home on it’s back.”

“You’re not missing out.”

“Stop changing the subject.” Gladys plucks the cigarette from her hand and snub it out before it burns down to the filter. “You couldn’t have left her there. You’re a good person, Alice. You wouldn’t do that.”

Her eyes don’t leave her feet. “I don’t feel like a good person,” she whispers. “I did something shitty last night.”

“Like ditch me to get laid?” 

Something between a laugh and sob escapes her mouth as she tries to protest. Gladys nudges her with her Converse. “Then what? You got some acid from the Serpents and sold it to some dumb Northsiders with spare cash.” She laughs. “No worse than any other Saturday night. Plus Hiram asked you to bring stuff, you didn’t -”

“I think I hurt some people’s feelings.” She looks up at Gladys. “I know that’s dumb and I shouldn’t care but I do.”

Gladys gives her a hard look before cracking another smile. “You’re fucking impossible, Al. You know that?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gladys sighs. “You’re all nonchalant about the weirdest shit and then boohoo over petty stuff. You have no remorse about dealing at a party or leaving some clueless drunk girl at Pops -”

“She was fine by then!”

“But you’re upset that you - what? Hurt someone’s feelings? But not that you perhaps hurt my feelings?” She nudges her sneaker against her again. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

Alice forces a smile. “You don’t think I’m a bad person?” She imagines having this conversation with Fred or FP around and it just doesn’t work, even in her head. 

“Well the jury is still out on that one,” she teases. “After all I don’t know what you did last night besides dump some poor drunk honor student at the diner.”

Alice thinks about all the feelings she toyed with the night before. She thinks of how her own feelings were toyed with too. She thinks of how she most certainly hurt Penelope Blossom’s feelings when that girl wasn’t a blip on her radar twenty-four hours ago. 

But none of that concerned Gladys. None of that involved her. Gladys couldn’t give a monkey’s about Hal Cooper or Penelope Blossom or any other Northside kids she deemed too boring to associate with. Even if Alice didn’t share the sentiments. 

Instead she thinks of the other thing that maybe happened, that thing that maybe was her fault. Maybe the thing Gladys would actually get.

Alice runs her finger around the rim of her cup. “I think I started a fight between FP and Fred.”

Gladys does perk up at that. She pulls her legs together and crosses them so she can lean forward. “Oh?”

“They say anything about it on the way home?”

Gladys pulls a face. “What do you mean the way home? I left all of you there.” 

“Gi, what the hell?” Alice feels the annoyance boil up inside of her. The same she felt last night after her little tête-à-tête in an upstairs bedroom at Hiram Lodge’s house. “You left all of us there? You left Fred and FP to get home? Alone? They’re idiots, they're probably dead by now!”

“They’re not alone if they’re together.”

“And if they weren’t together?”

“I was angry.” Gladys doesn’t even look at her. Just picks up the Bic and lights the cigarette she was saving for later. “I told you guys I didn’t want to go to that party and all three of you ditched me.” 

“I didn’t -”

“You did.” Gladys’ voice is flat. “You ditched me to hook up with some guy -”

“I didn’’t -”

“Alice.” Gladys gestures towards Alice’s shirt. “Look what you’re wearing. Unless you’ve all of a sudden developed a fondness for men’s shirts size extra large.”

“Oh.” And sure enough she’s decked out in a blue polo shirt she’s practically swimming in. “I - I think it’s just a large.”

“Uh huh.” Gladys rolls her eyes and Alice glares.

“Someone spilled a drink on me.” Mary, she thinks, but she must be mistaken because Mary never does more than observe at those kinds of parties. “And all I could find upstairs was a box full of The Ram shirts. You know those stupid ones Hiram has been trying to pass out at school?” Gladys actually laughs at that. “I couldn’t do that to myself. So - so Hal took one of those and gave me his shirt. Saved me the embarrassment of anyone thinking I associate with that little -”

“I get it, I get it. You thought your story out very well.”

“Come on.” Alice sighs heavily. “I tell you everything.” Lies.

Gladys examines her cigarette before offering it to Alice. “Tell me what you did to Fred and FP.”

And Alice regrets ever bringing it up in the first place. “Well maybe I said some unkind things.”

“What else is new?”

“No, like on purpose.” She takes one last pull off the cigarette and crushes it out, realizing with a guilty pang the shirt she was in was going to smell like smoke. “They were just annoying me. Like getting on my nerves annoying me. They’re both such little - ugh. Well you know the only reason Fred wanted to go to that party was to show up Hiram and impress Hermione.”

“Typical Fred antics,” Gladys says with a roll of her eye. It was impossible to be friends with Fred and not get used to this stuff. 

“And FP was only going because Fred was going. And I was only going because stupid Hiram asked me if I could get him acid,” a lie, there was another reason, “and you know me, always the people pleaser.” Another lie, one Gladys raises a brow at but doesn’t object to. “So remember you went to see if you could mess around with the karaoke machine and plug a guitar in? So like maybe I fed FP some bullshit then,” she bites her nail, “about how he follows Fred like a little puppy and everyone finds it so sad and he’s so quick to give in to everything Fred does and like was I even wrong? It’s pathetic but it’s true. And yeah maybe it wasn’t the right time to bring that all up.” She takes a deep breath. “You know when Fred and FP do that thing where they hardly exchange two words yet they’re totally on the same page and you just feel totally out of the loop? Doesn’t that drive you nuts? Like I was friends with both of them before they were even really friends with each other. And it was like they kept doing it the whole way to the party and I feel like I’m totally out of the loop sometimes and yet you’re sitting there too and it doesn’t bother you so maybe I’m just crazy but I couldn’t take another night of them having fun and leaving me out so -”

“So you made it so none of us would have fun?” Gladys asks. Alice pouts but nods. “I don’t like your jealous side, baby.” She tries to pinch Alice’s cheek and she smacks her hand away. 

“Anyway, well they started arguing and FP said some stuff about how Hermione just like toying with him and he’s dumb enough to fall for it,” she takes another deep breath, “and Fred told FP to just leave if he’s so unhappy and I don’t know.” She bites another nail. “I think that’s when I ducked out. And now they’re both probably dead because you left them there. Either drunk themselves to death or jumped off the goddamn roof together in a suicide pact because you know they always come up with -”

“They’re not dead,” Gladys scoffs, her eyes fixated on something down the road.

“How can you possibly know that?”

“Because,” her eyes roll, “I saw them together later on in a rather compromising position and if that’s them fighting -”

“What now?” Alice grabs her arm. “They were -”

It’s Gladys’ turn to smack Alice away and gestures to the street. “Plus that looks like them right there.”

A screech draws Alice’s attention to where Gladys is pointing. A convertible is just passing where the Smith mailbox once sat.

“Idiot,” Gladys hisses. “He’s going to fuck up his brakes doing that.”

Neither girl can hide their confusion as Hal Cooper opens the passenger side door before the car even comes to a complete stop. Hiram Lodge is in the driver seat, seemingly scolding him, as Fred and FP lounge in the back. Hiram pauses and waves at the girls.

“Hey Gladys!” he shouts and Gladys lets out a groan.

“I hope he doesn’t think I live around here.”

“But you do live around here.”

“Yeah and the last thing I ever want is Hiram Lodge to know my home address.” She shudders, still not waving back. “Gross.”

FP hops over the side of the car and makes his way towards Sunnyside’s back gate, not even giving the girls a glance. Hal stumbles out of the car and makes his way towards them.

Fred yells out something they can’t make out after FP and Hiram screams out Hal’s name in that awful shrieking manner he often used when he wasn’t getting his way. FP passes them, burying his hands deep in his pockets as he starts his short walk home. Hal waves Hiram off and the girls only get a glimpse of Fred climbing into the front seat as they speed away. Hal gives them a nervous smile from the curb.

“Dear God,” Gladys mutters. “He’s wearing a Ram shirt.”

“Shut it.” Both girls straighten their posture as Hal approaches but neither offers him a smile or a word. He stops a respectable six feet or so from the porch and also sticks his hands in his pockets. There’s sweat beading on his brow that probably has little to do with the April morning sun.

“Hey.” His voice wavers as he speaks. “Hey Alice, Gladys.”

“Hey,” they repeat in monotone sync, neither breaking gaze with him. He eventually looks down at his sneakers. 

Gladys stirs and before Alice can pinch her she blurts out, “Did you really show up here in your boyfriend’s shirt?” She looks at Alice. “Awkward.”

“Oh.” Hal’s face turns red. “I mean Hiram just has so many of them.”

“Your boyfriend has a lot of shirts with his own name on them? I think that’s a sign of narcissism.”

Hal’s mouth opens and closes in a way that makes him look not entirely unlike a fish. But instead of making a quip at Gladys, he turns to Alice. 

“I’m sorry.” His hands are deep in his pockets and he lets out a long sigh. “About last night.”

“Which part?” She looks at her cup instead of him. There are some unappetizing coffee grinds and undissolved sugar sitting on the bottom. “The part where you tried seducing me even though you have a girlfriend or the part where said girlfriend assaulted me with a high heel?”

“I - what?” He looks helplessly at Gladys. “I didn’t - I don’t have a girlfriend. And I wasn’t trying to seduce Alice -”

“And why not?” Gladys snaps. Before Alice has a chance to react, Gladys grabs her face and forces her to look at Hal. “Look at her! She’s a knockout. You should be so lucky, Cooper.”

“I mean - I was - not really, but -”

“Cut it out.” Alice smacks Gladys’ hand away and rubs her sore cheek. “Penelope and I,” she thinks of the right words for her time with the redhead the previous night, “duked it out. We’re cool.”

“Really?” Hal asks.

“Really?” Gladys parrots. She drops her tone. “Even after you, you know?”

“Know what?” Hal asks. “Is she -”

“Nothing,” Alice and Gladys say together. 

“Right.” Hal’s eyes dart back and forth between them. He takes a deep breath. “Hey, Alice, do you want to like, maybe go get breakfast or something? Maybe?”

“Like a date?” she asks.

He shrugs “Or just a milkshake if a meal seems too - too formal?”

“I could go for breakfast.” She does her damndest to keep her eyes on Hal and not look at Gladys as her face reddens. “Let me just - grab shoes.”

“Maybe a bra too.” Gladys is reaching over and pulling another cigarette from her stash. Alice purposely steps on her foot as she gets up but Gladys doesn’t feel through her sneakers. 

She can just hear, “Did Alice give you that shiner or someone else?” before she slams the door behind her and fumbles around her room for clothes. 

Hal’s shirt ends up on her bed with Penelope’s shoes peeking out from underneath. She takes one step back to grab them both - surely Hal was more likely to see Penelope first - but changes her mind. Her Cinderella tokens from last night. Let either of them ask for their stuff back. 

“Sounds like I missed a good party after all,” Gladys says with little amusement in her voice and Alice steps back outside. “You out?”

“Oh.” Alice pauses before jumping off the porch towards Hal. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I can -”

Gladys waves her off. “Go. I’m used to it.”

Alice slumps her shoulders. “Gi, I’m sorry -”

“Stop it.” She waves again. “Really. Get lost. Go have fun or something.” She picks up the pack of stale cigarettes. “I am taking these though. I’ll go see what’s got FP’s goat.” She looks between her and Hal with amusement. “I can’t believe he missed whatever this was.”

“Oh, he’s not in a great mood,” Hal says and looks like he immediately regrets it when Gladys looks at him. “I mean he like - Hiram may have hosed him down. And he was kind of pissed at Fred. Maybe something -”

“Thanks, Cooper,” Gladys interrupts and dusts off her shorts. “Very helpful.” She walks between them and takes off towards the trailer park without another word. 

“So,” Hal’s voice pulls her back from watching Gladys walk away, “about last night.”

“Yeah.” Alice stands on the top step of her small porch, making her just a tad taller than him. “I may have overreacted a bit.”

“Yeah. No. I mean, it’s not like you’re the one who threw a shoe.” His hand goes to his cheek. “I probably deserved that.”

“Probably.” Alice takes a step down. “I don’t even think she’s going to remember she did that.”

Hal’s hands go back in his pocket and she almost wants to smack them to pull them back out. “Thanks for taking care of her.”

She shrugs and steps off the porch, walking towards the street. Without a word, he followers her.

“No offence but I don’t really want to talk about Penelope Blossom.”

Hal nods in understanding yet says, “She’s really not anything more than a friend, I swear. I have no idea what got into her.”

Alice thinks she knows - knows she knows - but she doesn’t offer up any information. Let that be between her and Penelope and God. Instead she waits for him to match pace and grabs his hand for their walk to Pops.


End file.
